CATL to produce world’s fastest EV battery that offers 400km driving range with just 10 minutes of charging, to keep prices affordable for ‘ordinary consumers’

Hope more ‘ordinary consumers’ can ‘enjoy the dividends arising from technological innovations’, CATL’s chief scientist says
New batteries to have 4C charging capabilities, which means they can be fully charged in just 15 minutes

Electric & new energy vehicles

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 7:00am, 17 Aug 2023

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Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL), the world’s largest such manufacturer, plans to start producing the world’s fastest-charging EV battery by the end of this year, in its latest efforts to accelerate the use of battery-powered cars.

The Shenxing Battery, which can offer a 400-kilometre driving range with just 10 minutes of charging, will be delivered to some carmakers in the first quarter of 2024, CATL said on Wednesday.

It said the new batteries will have 4C charging capabilities, which means they can be fully charged in just 15 minutes.

“We hope more ordinary consumers can access the latest [EV battery] technology, and enjoy the dividends arising from technological innovations,” Wu Kai, CATL’s chief scientist, told a press conference on Wednesday. CATL will make the battery affordable for a wider range of customers, rather than just a handful of wealthy EV owners, he added.

The Shenxing Battery launch is significant because a higher charging speed will help increase the use of battery-powered vehicles.

“Ultra-fast charging capability has been chased by many EV companies because many car buyers view it as a priority – saving [charging] time during a long journey,” said Tian Maowei, a sales manager at Yiyou Auto Service in Shanghai. “The battery will be in high demand when delivery starts.”

CATL, which is based in Ningde, China’s eastern Fujian province, did not disclose details about the new battery’s capacity. The 4C lithium, iron and phosphate (LFP) battery is also expected to show good performance at low temperatures, and can be charged to 80 per cent in 30 minutes even when temperatures dip to minus 10 degrees Celsius.

At present, batteries account for about 40 per cent of the total production cost of an EV.

Chinese EV start-up Xpeng also uses an ultra-fast charging battery produced by Chinese company CALB in its G9 sport-utility vehicle (SUV). The Guangzhou-based carmaker said the battery, also categorised as 4C, needs five minutes of ultra-fast charging for a driving range of 300km.

CATL is a runaway leader in the EV battery industry worldwide. It installed 112 gigawatt-hours of batteries in the first six months of 2023, a 562 per cent year-on-year increase. The company had a market share of 36.8 per cent in the first half, followed by BYD’s 15.7 per cent.

Its second-quarter earnings rose 63.2 per cent to 10.9 billion yuan (US$1.49 billion) year on year, slowing from a year-on-year surge of 558 per cent in the first three months of this year.

CATL, whose clients include Tesla, BMW and Nio, unveiled the world’s first sodium-ion battery – a new technology using cheaper raw materials to save production costs – in July 2021.

At the Shanghai Auto Show in April, CATL launched condensed batteries, which will be used on electric aeroplanes. The company said the batteries can also be used to power EVs and mass production will start this year.

CATL is, however, facing a capacity glut, with the utilisation rate at its production facilities dropping to 60.5 per cent in the first half of this year from 81.25 per cent in the same period a year ago, according to Reuters.